And the Stones Cry Out
On sale
10th April 2025
Price: £10.99
This is the story of a child with black eyes that float in and out of focus, a child soft and round, with translucent, blue-veined legs unable to hold his weight, an eternal baby. This is the story of his place in the Cévennes house where he was born, overlooked by swaying trees and craggy mountains.
This is the story of his siblings: the eldest who spends his days cheek-to-cheek with his baby brother, attuned to the rushing, buzzing, whistling sounds that connect him to the outside world; the sister who rejects him and resents him for consuming the attention of her parents and brother, for turning her family upside down; and the youngest child, whose life unfolds in the shadow of what his brother’s might have been.
This is the story of the ancient stones embedded in the courtyard walls, devoted witnesses to the children’s lives, who watch over them and tell their tale.
A fable for our time, And the Stones Cry Out delicately paints the portrait of a family adapting to their circumstances, to each other, and to a world not built for difference.
Translated from the French by Ben Faccini
This is the story of his siblings: the eldest who spends his days cheek-to-cheek with his baby brother, attuned to the rushing, buzzing, whistling sounds that connect him to the outside world; the sister who rejects him and resents him for consuming the attention of her parents and brother, for turning her family upside down; and the youngest child, whose life unfolds in the shadow of what his brother’s might have been.
This is the story of the ancient stones embedded in the courtyard walls, devoted witnesses to the children’s lives, who watch over them and tell their tale.
A fable for our time, And the Stones Cry Out delicately paints the portrait of a family adapting to their circumstances, to each other, and to a world not built for difference.
Translated from the French by Ben Faccini
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Reviews
A beautiful declaration of love to the modern family . . . vibrant and moving
A powerful ode to resilience
Clara Dupont-Monod has abandoned history and the Middle Ages to delicately take up the theme of disability in this deeply affecting novel . . . The most moving work of this literary season
This very intimate story is, like the mountain that hangs over it and protects it, stark and majestic, at once Huguenot and Claudelian . . . A moving portrait
A luminous text which reveals without pretence the extraordinary difficulty, but also the beauty of the difference
Poetic, delicate, tender, Adapting is at once a tragic and luminous tale. A wonderful ode to life
A hymn to weakness, an incredible cry of faith in life . . . A deeply moving narrative with autobiographical echoes
Clara Dupont-Monod speaks to our hearts
Luminous and intensely poetic
A book overflowing with emotions, with a wild and relentless vitality to rebuild
A breath-taking book about self-knowledge and the strength of sibling bonds
This text is a gem that aptly depicts the love that illuminates and hinders the sibling bond
One of the most beautiful texts of this literary season . . . The nobility of her writing is dazzling
This wonder of a novel is beautifully told, full of revelation, and true in the way only great fiction can be. This is the story of children grappling with the deepest meanings of our lives. The voice is lyrical and true. Every word matters. Read it
I love any book that teaches me how to love better, deeper. This is what I felt Clara Dupont-Monod's And The Stones Cry Out taught me. Clara's sentences are tender and illuminating, they carefully guided me along a complex family story, like stones skimming on water. The book reminded me of just how connected we are, whether we are a sibling, a stranger, or a stone bearing witness. It is an important reminder we might need now more than ever. As readers, are we suddenly the stones watching the unravelling of sibling relationships or are the stones trying to say that they are us, sharing our family story? Perhaps a little bit of both. Either way, I'm so thankful this book exists
There is a searing honesty to the narrative . . . There are few novels that evoke the landscape as sensually as this. The mountains, streams, trees and stones are there on every page, even as an unmentioned presence. The landscape underpins everything . . . There is a quiet wisdom in the narration that works brilliantly